The carpet gains an identity

Back to Innovation 2023
With the Fellow Project "Metamorphosis of a Rug," Ruckstuhl presented one of the industry's first digital product passports at Milano Design Week 2023 – offering a new perspective on the origin, use, and reuse of carpets.

Innovation does not arise where technology replaces craftsmanship – but where both come together. With this ambition, Ruckstuhl presented the Fellow Project "Metamorphosis of a Rug" at the 2023 Milano Design Week, showcasing a new vision for the future of the carpet.

In collaboration with Swiss designer Stephan Hürlemann, an exhibition was created at Assab One in Milan that no longer sees the carpet merely as an object, but as a carrier of data, origin, and history. Each carpet becomes part of a system that connects design, production, use, and reuse.

At the center was a digital product passport that gives each carpet its own identity. Material origin, manufacturing process, care instructions, or later changes remain traceable throughout the entire lifecycle and accompany the product far beyond the moment of purchase. The carpet thus receives a documented biography – and a future.

Stephan Hürlemann’s designs are based on an open creative system of colors, geometries, and digital data sets. Robot tufting produces individual pieces with the highest precision and at the same time minimal material use. Each carpet is unique but remains part of a larger design family.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described the collaboration between Stephan Hürlemann and Ruckstuhl as "one of these rare examples of true innovation in the industry" and further wrote that together they had "developed an entirely new system of designing, producing, distributing, and re-using tufted rugs."

The Fellow Project understands the carpet as part of a new cycle. Production routes are shortened, resources are used more consciously, and products are accompanied throughout their entire lifespan. The innovation lies not only in the technology but in a new understanding of value creation: a carpet receives not only an origin but a traceable identity.

With "Metamorphosis of a Rug," Ruckstuhl showed in Milan how Swiss craftsmanship, design, and digital technologies can combine into a new form of product culture – precise, responsible, and future-oriented.